The Badlands

On Monday June 8, we left Mountain Lake, MN at 8:19am, Acey 62,908.2, Thor 66,577. About an hour into our drive west, the slide cover came loose. It was quite windy, much stronger than the 17mph gusting to 25 that was forecasted. We pulled off at the next exit (33) and stopped on the shoulder of the off ramp. Jim climbed up on the roof to remove the cloth cover, the end caps and the inner tube that wound the cloth while I prayed for his safety and held the back ladder extension from blowing away. The inner tube of the slide is two pieces, each about 14 feet long. We drove off the ramp and away from I-90 and found a much less windy spot at Rushmore, MN to remove the slide cover that was also two 14 foot pieces ; so we have 4 14-foot long pieces to haul around inside on the floor, until we can get new tubes and end caps ordered.

We arrived at Minute Man RV Park, located just outside of Badlands National Park at about 4:30pm (Acey 63,278; Thor 66,577) This park is really just a parking lot where we had full hookups and we were parked very closely between 2 Fifth Wheels that appear to be long-term campers living on site.

Tuesday we drove around Badlands Park and did some hiking. It was quite windy and cool as we explored the very odd landscape.

On the way back to the RV park, we stopped in at Wall Drug for a free ice water and met some interesting folks. Wall Drug has signs all along the Interstate – so I guess you have to stop by….